Bit rates query

Support
#1

Hi - I have been using MP3tag for a long time, and also have PZTag and Media Monkey installed, plus iTunes and WMP. I have converted most of my music to 256 kBits Stereo via the program iDFX. In all the above softwares the bitrate and mode are displayed as 256 and Stereo, but in MP3tag they show for a seemingly random percentage of the files as low bit rates (8!!) and a variety of modes - dual channel, single channel, joint stereo etc. This is quite strange ...... not that serious but quite annoying, as I can't easily see the correct bitrates for ALL files. Can someone tell me why that is happening?

Also, when I choose "Blank" for comments, comments with multiple lines are not really removed - ie they still show up in other software, particularly PZTag, which I use 50/50 with MP3tag.

Thanks.

#2

I do not know enough about that program but:

  • display a column in MP3tag whether the files are actually VBR or CBR. Only CBR files show a constant bitrate.
    If you KNOW that a file MUST be CBR but it is displayed as VBR then let loose a program like Foobar2000 (freeware) or mp3val (freeware) to have the header of that file checked (and possibly rebuilt).

If you are not happy with VBR files then convert them to CBR with a program like mp3packer (freeware).

#3

Thanks. The particular software forces CBR 256 and most of my software tells me that stuff I have converted IS CBR 256, but MP3tag sees it at as VBR whatever. So does Foobar .... so, as the brains behind these two programs are known to be superior I suspect it's some glitch in the conversion software. :slight_smile:

#4

I know that e.g. cdex also does not convert properly. a) a superfluous extra LENGTH field is inserted :sunglasses: the header always reports an invalid block size.
So I made it a routine to have the newly converted files run through the various checkers and rebuild the tags. Afterwards everything is fine.